


I Promise

by AnxiouslyGoing



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Autistic Leonard McCoy, Discussions of the abuse, Discussions of triggers, Fluffy Ending, Jim catches on right away, Jim does his best to help, Jim opens up about his past too, Len has a lot to heal from and Jim is there to support him, Leonard McCoy - Freeform, Lots of angst first, M/M, New Relationship, Nothing happens in the story, Panic Attack, Past Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, jim kirk - Freeform, kiss gone wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22811719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnxiouslyGoing/pseuds/AnxiouslyGoing
Summary: Relationships are hard. Past trauma can make them even more so, but healing is always possible.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Comments: 4
Kudos: 86





	I Promise

Leonard gasped, his head thudded against the wall behind him as he tried to step back. Hands gripped his hips and the slightest whimper escaped him as he writhed, trying to fight the urge to shove away the body pressed against his. 

All at once he was on the floor, knees pulled to his chest, and half slumped over. He couldn't breathe.

"Bones! Hey, can you hear me?" 

His head snapped up and in the dim light he could make out Jim's worried face. Jim. Not Jocelyn. Just Jim. 

Len nodded and tried to take a deep breath. 

"Easy, Bones, easy. It's ok." Jim rubbed small circles on Len's temple with his thumb. "Do you need me to count for you?" 

Len shook his head. And let out a huff of air. After a moment he reached up and pulled Jim's hand from his face and held it to his chest. Jim's hand. Not Jocelyn's. 

For his part Jim tried to not come closer. Despite the instinct to wrap Bones in a protective embrace, he remained rooted on the floor a little less than arm's length away. "Are you ok?" He asked after Len had been breathing steadily for a few minutes. 

Len nodded, but seemed to struggle to keep his eyes on Jim's face. 

"Let's get off the floor, ok? Let's go sit down." Jim carefully took Len's arm and hauled him to his feet. He kept an uncertain hand on Len's arm as they made their way across the room, not wanting to cause him anymore distress, but at the same time almost afraid to let him go.

Len kept his arms tucked close around himself, almost hugging his own waist as they settled onto the couch, bodies turned inward so they were facing each other. Jim set a PADD down between them and tucked an ankle under his knee. For a long moment they sat in silence, neither quite knowing what to say. 

"I'm sorry that I upset you," Jim said softly. 

Len sniffled a little. "I'm sorry I panicked." 

"That's nothing to be sorry about." Jim tentatively reached his arm across the back of the couch, near enough that Len could lean his head into the open palm, just enough to offer a source of grounding. Still far enough away that Len could refuse it. "I don't want you to feel boxed in, I know this isn't an easy conversation, but I need to know what I did that upset you so I don't do it again." 

Len's frown deepened. He gestured vaguely at his neck then quickly pulled his arms in again. 

"When I kissed your neck?" 

Len nodded, eyes flicking between Jim's and his hands wringing together in his laps. "'M sorry," he mumbled tightly between clenched teeth. 

"It's ok," Jim assured. He thumbed away a stray tear without cupping Len's face in his hand. "It's ok. You don't have to look at me. It's alright, just look where you're comfortable, ok? I know this is hard and I don't want to make it worse. But I need you to hear me. Bones, this wasn't your fault." 

"I should've told you. I should'a-" he cut himself off, gritting his teeth together. 

"Shh." He stroked away another tear. "I should have made sure you were comfortable with what we were doing. And for that I am very sorry. I want you to know that I wasn't meaning to push you, and I'm sorry if you felt like I was. And I want you to know you can tell me no. I never want you to feel like you can't. I want you to feel _safe_ , Bones. I want you to be safe with _me._ So I'm promising you, right now, that I won't kiss you like that anymore. And I promise that if you tell me 'no' about _anything_ , I will listen to you. If you push me away, I will stop. There's no denying I'm a physical person, we both know that, but I don't want that to be an excuse. It's not. And it _shouldn't_ be. Not an excuse for me to push you, and not a reason for you to feel like you have to go along with anything. You are _not_ obligated to put up with _any_ of my clinginess, ok? So even if you're just a little bit uncomfortable, tell me, and I promise I'll listen. And I promise to work on asking. Because I never want to hurt you like this again." 

"It's not everything," Len answered hoarsely. "I don't mind most of it. There's just some things..." he trailed off with a shrug. 

"Like your neck." Len nodded. "You don't have to talk about this anymore than you want to. If this is going to be too much we can stop," Jim offered. 

"You need to know." He snorted humorlessly to himself. "You probably already figured it out anyway, you're good at that. I wasn't allowed to say no to her. If I tried...she'd say I didn't love her, or start acting like I was angry at her, start apologizing, or..." 

"She'd make you feel guilty for it." Jim slipped his hand between Len's.

Len nodded and made himself take a deep breath. "She'd sit really close and...put her hand around my leg, kinda tuck it under my leg, after a little while I just started disassociating then 'cause I knew what she wanted." 

"I'm so sorry, Bones," Jim murmured. 

"And she would hold my head. She'd-" he raised his arm so his hand was just a little higher than his head, voice hitching as he struggled to continue, "she'd grab my hair and hold my head down, so I couldn't pull away." 

Jim pulled his hand away from Len's face. In a moment every time he had ever touched Len's hair flashed through his mind. Disgust twisted in his gut. "Bones, if I have ever-"

Len shook his head. "You haven't. It's not the same. She would cut me with her nails." He snorted humorlessly again. "All’a that, you think I would'a recognized it sooner." 

"Hey, don't do that to yourself, babe. Don't blame yourself, it wasn't your fault. Thank you for trusting me enough to talk to me about this. I know it's hard, but it means a lot to me and I'm gonna do my best to remember it. I'm not gonna do those things to you and if I start to, smack my hand, tell me off, whatever it doesn't matter. I just don't want to hurt you." 

Len gnawed on his lip. "I don't mind you touching my head, I just don't like-" he raised his hand again, trying to find the words. 

"Just don't hold onto the top of it," Jim filled in. "I won't," he promised when Len nodded. "How are you feeling? You ok?" 

"I'm _tired_ ," he answered weakly. 

"Yeah. That was...a _lot_. But we got through it. And I mean it, I'm going to remember this, and I'm not going to do anything you are not a hundred percent ok with. And I don't mean 'ok with doing it because you think I want to', I mean ok with it on your own terms. Alright?" 

Len nodded. "Thank you." 

Jim smiled. "Would it be ok if I kissed your forehead?" 

"You don't have to ask for that." 

"But I _do._ I want to get in that habit so we can avoid having this situation again." 

"I would like it if you did." 

Jim gently put a hand to Len's jaw and kissed his forehead twice before resting his own against Len's. For a long moment they sat together, heads bowed, foreheads pressed together, holding each other loosely. 

"Thank you for stopping," Len said softly. "Thank you for knowing me well enough to know you needed to." 

"Thank you for giving me the chance to know you that well," Jim answered. 

"Will you kiss me again?" 

Jim grinned and lightly kissed his mouth. "Anytime. Hey," Jim sat back a little, "I'm proud of you. It takes a lot of courage to open up about this stuff. You're healing, and if you'll let me, I wanna be there every step of the way. Listen to me though, that doesn't mean that we ever have to do anything more than what we did tonight. I don't want you thinking that talks like this are a magic cure-all or that one day all these triggers will be gone. I've healed a lot since Tarsus and we both know there's still plenty of triggers from that. So it's ok. It's ok if there are things you are never comfortable with. It does not make you 'broken' or 'weak' or whatever else your mind is going to tell you on those bad days. It just means you're alive. And I promise never to hold those things against you." 

Len dug the heel of his hand into his eye. "It's not fair of me to ask you to give up what you want though." 

"But you're not. Look, I've had more than my fair share of hook ups, I'll give you that. But I did it because I wasn't in a good place. I was hurting and lonely and _beyond_ touch starved and I was trying to fill all that up in the worst way possible and...I'm not going to lie to you, there are some things that because of those experiences that I can't handle either. When you're that _desperate_ for affection and attention you take in whatever way you can get it, even if it's not entirely what you want, even if it hurts you in the end." Len harrumphed, tossed the PADD onto the table, and tugged Jim into his arms, as if to hide him in a protective embrace. Jim chuckled and patted his arms. 

"Hey," he sat up out of Len's arms. "The point is, I'm not that person anymore. I'm in _so_ much of a better place now. I don't _need_ those things anymore. And that has a lot to do with you. Even before we started... _whatever_ this is that we still haven't named, you were helping me with that. You showed my value without any demands, you showed me the value I had as just me and not what I could do for you. Bones, you _gave_ me my value back. And there's no way I could ever thank you enough for that. So when I say that I am happy with just a kiss- even just holding your hand, I mean it. I'm not who I used to be, and honestly, sure, sometimes it was nice in the moment, but at the end of the day, I was left feeling worse off and more touch starved than when I started. I don't have that with you. I am _happy_ and content with you just the way we are. So don't worry about 'depriving' me, because I promise you, you're not. If anything I _need_ you to tell me no sometimes. I need that reminder that...I'm ok now. Sometimes I have bad days and my first thought is...to go find someone I know I can make happy so at least I'm doing something right. Because that was part of it too, I was so _desperate_ for approval I took it anyway I could get it. And you- you remind me that I don't need to do that anymore. Telling me no doesn't hurt me. It really does help." 

Len bit into his lip. "I don't know if I know how to do that." 

"That's ok. For tonight, I think we just need to get some rest. That was a lot. It was a good place to start, but I think it's enough for one night. What are you thinking? Honestly," Jim added when Len hesitated. 

"It scares me that I can't say no. I know- I know you stopped tonight, I know you will. But it still scares me that I don't know _how_ to say no. But I don't know...how to fix it." 

Jim sighed. "I don't know exactly either. Because I don't want to put you in situations that you're uncomfortable just for the sake of trying to get you to say no. I don't think that would help. So maybe...maybe we start small. Maybe we start with not always taking my hand every time I offer it, maybe we start with telling me 'no' or 'not right now' when I offer a hug. Honestly, Bones, you kind of already do that. You do that when you're overstimed and I ask if a hug or rubbing your back would help. You tell me no then. It's the same thing. It's overwhelming, right? So it's the same thing. It's a difficult type of situation, sure, but you can tell me 'no'. You _have_ told me 'no'. I know that's not the solution you were looking for, but maybe it's a start. Does that help?" 

"I don't know. It's not the same thing. It's different when- if I got that upset it got to a point where she'd ignore me. It's different when I feel like I'm supposed to behave a certain way." 

"I know it is. But there's not a quick, overnight solution. Believe me, I wish there was. I _wish_ that there was that one thing I could say that could make all this go away, and take away all that fear, and the trauma, Bones, I _wish_ I could do that for you-" 

Len shook his head. "It's not fair of me to expect that. I know that's not how it works." 

"It's fair for you to want it, though," Jim answered. "Dealing with this stuff… It's like cleaning out an infection, right? It hurts like hell, and in some ways, it feels like ripping everything wide open and it feels like a new wound all over again and sometimes it's worse. But it's progress. We flushed out a pretty big wound tonight, and we might have to do that a few more times. And I'm gonna be honest with you, it's gonna scar. It's gonna scar and sometimes that will hurt like it was never taken care of in the first place. But those days, after some time, get fewer and farther between. You're still scared right now, that's fair, that's ok, you're a little sore from having that wound flushed out. And you want it to stop, but the thing is, you can't push healing. You can't do too much at once or you'll burn yourself out, the strain will do more harm than good. Believe me, I know what it feels like to have that wound flushed out and not feel like it did any good at all. But I promise it did. We started getting rid of that infection, but now we've gotta let that wound rest. We don't wanna damage the healthy tissue around it, right? Yeah, you're not the only one who knows medicine, I took a few classes too." They shared a chuckle and Len slumped forward a little, resting his head on Jim's shoulder. 

"Hey," Jim set his hand on the back of Len's neck, thumbing just behind his ear. "Deep breath. You did a lot tonight. And I really am proud of you. But now it's time to rest. Just like you're always getting on to me for, right? 'What do you think you're doing, Jim? Get back in bed before you fall over and give yourself another concussion.'," Jim teased gently. He grinned when Len chuckled even just a little. "Hey, if you want to stay with me, that's ok. And it's ok if you don't. I wanna leave that completely up to you, because that's how we start this. You get to make these choices." 

"I wanna stay." 

"Ok. Let's go lay down then, ok?" They stood together, and walked hand in hand to the bedroom.

It took a little while for them to settle in, Jim trying to give Len as much space as he might have needed and Len trying to figure out for himself what that was. Part of him felt a little guilty as he settled his head on Jim's shoulder, back to the rest of his body and hugging his arm. He couldn't help but feel like he had somehow guilt tripped Jim into letting him decide how they would spend the night. But Jim was right about one thing, they had covered a lot of ground tonight and they needed to rest. Tomorrow he could bring up his worries and they would work on them together. Together. It had a nice ring to it, Len thought. He smiled as Jim wrapped his other arm around his waist and the warmth of Jim's chest seeped into his back. 

"Is this ok?" Jim murmured into his hair. 

Leonard hugged both his arms. "This is just fine." 

"Good. Luff you, Bones." 

"Love ya too, Jim," he answered and closed his eyes. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> If there are any addition tags or warnings needed please let me know.


End file.
